When I Have Time by Sara Rosso » Website & Bloghttp://whenihavetime.com
Tech Tips, Biz Info and How-Tos to Bridge the Gap between Meek and GeekTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:44:16 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/d2adfbefe2f4346f57360586498feca7?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png » Website & Bloghttp://whenihavetime.com
A World Without WordPress? No, Thanks.http://whenihavetime.com/2014/04/29/a-world-without-wordpress-no-thanks/
http://whenihavetime.com/2014/04/29/a-world-without-wordpress-no-thanks/#commentsTue, 29 Apr 2014 16:41:13 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=6676]]>Below are two interviews with me at WordCamp Paris – I talk about how I got started with WordPress, how I think WordPress has changed the world, how different WordPress communities are around the world, and how the next ten years for WordPress agencies are going to ask them to mature and grow to meet the demand we’re seeing for enterprise projects (the presentation I gave at WC Paris is online, too).

“I don’t want to imagine a world without WordPress. Maybe in the future it will be a different version or a mutation of it, there needs to be a free and easy way for people to control their content, and I’m glad that WordPress can do that.”

]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2014/04/29/a-world-without-wordpress-no-thanks/feed/0Interview-Sara-Rosso-WordCamp-Paris-MarketPress-899x400Sarag02-Rosso-Itw-WCParis2014.mp4WordPress Agencies: Facing Challenges for the Next 10 Yearshttp://whenihavetime.com/2014/01/21/wordpress-agencies-facing-challenges-for-the-next-10-years/
http://whenihavetime.com/2014/01/21/wordpress-agencies-facing-challenges-for-the-next-10-years/#commentsTue, 21 Jan 2014 11:46:22 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=5192]]>Here’s the presentation I gave at WordCamp Paris this past weekend — I focused on what WordPress agencies need to do to be enterprise-ready which I think is the biggest challenge the WordPress community is facing in the next ten years. As the software matures and becomes more well-known, the demand for bigger and more innovative projects is increasing, too, and the many WordPress consultancies around the world need to be ready to answer that call.

I’ll be posting an extended recap of the presentation with some additional quotes from our WordPress.com VIP partners on the VIP News site shortly. Update: The video of my presentation is now online and embedded below.

Thanks to all the Tweets and pics of the event – the community in Paris is really active and I met a ton of interesting people. Big thanks to the WordCamp Paris organizers – Xavier, Benjamin, and Benoît! A bientôt!

]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2014/01/21/wordpress-agencies-facing-challenges-for-the-next-10-years/feed/0Next10Years.001Sarag02-Rosso-Conf-WCParis2014.mp4Is Personal Branding Everyone’s Problem? Spoiler: Yes!http://whenihavetime.com/2013/11/12/personal-branding-is-everyones-problem/
http://whenihavetime.com/2013/11/12/personal-branding-is-everyones-problem/#commentsTue, 12 Nov 2013 15:01:14 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=4074]]>In October I went to the SDA Bocconi School of Management to speak to the Young Women Network about personal branding. I presented with Paola Bonomo, one of the more interesting women in technology & angel investing in Italy, whom I’ve known for years. We agreed on some questions to discuss beforehand, and some great questions came from the audience, too. I translated the questions as best I could remember, and I’m including some of my answers below about personal branding, and using a personal website (WordPress of course!) and other tools like LinkedIn to communicate your personal brand.

More and more people are registering domains with their first and last name. Is it useful to create a site with your actual name? Which message(s) should it communicate?

I’m (a student / new to the workforce / young). Is it too early to think about my personal brand?

What are the downsides / risks of being too visible online?

Isn’t personal branding a little aggressive?

What does personal branding mean to you?

Paola remarked that a personal brand is what other people say of you, and while I definitely agree, personal branding has the added component of giving you the opportunity to also shape what others say about you, by adding to that story in 1st person. In banal terms, personal branding is the branding of an individual through the recounting of experience, goals, and skills, with a goal of increasing visibility, obtaining professional opportunities, or just helping to shape & contribute to the narrative about themselves.

Does everyone need a personal brand? Why or why not?

I think everyone needs one, and as I mentioned previously, you probably already have a personal brand anyway. I think the better question is asking yourself if you want to be able to, or are you prepared to cultivate your personal brand directly and take advantage of it and shape it if necessary? Obviously I think you should.

It’s the difference between being reactive and proactive. If you don’t have some tools, content, and some goals in place, it’s very hard to ‘turn the Titanic’ later when you really need to.

One of the stories I often tell about personal branding is several years ago when I was organizing the Girl Geek Dinners in Milan, an Italian journalist wrote an article about the organizers and the description of who I was, was roughly translated to “a housewife passionate about recipes and photography.” I don’t have anything against housewives, but at the time I was working full-time in a technical role with two degrees under my belt, so to say it wasn’t an accurate description of me was an understatement. At the time my most prominent presence online was my food & travel site — this site didn’t yet exist & I was forwarding my firstnamelastname domain to that food site, so LinkedIn profile aside, the journalist made an incorrect assumption. That was one of the impetus in fact to create this website — I wanted to increase the visibility of my technical and business side, which I was working hard on all-day every day in the workplace (and at night by helping friends with their own tech & biz problems).

How can one start to create their own personal brand?

You need to start online. We joke but it’s the first place someone goes if they are curious about you. You Google that person. You Google yourself even, ala vanity Googling. Even if you get a personal recommendation about someone, you’re most likely going to follow that up with your own search about that person — does the recommendation match what other people are saying about this person? And about what they say about themselves?

Not only that, but having an online presence which is clear and includes your personal brand is a way to help your friends help you. They can help you better if you provide them a reference point online, especially if you make it clear what kinds of things you’re looking for, and your accomplishments. It’s like a “you” crib sheet or cliffs notes.

Another reason to go online is to make sure you’re providing the story of your brand in first person. Look online — do you like what’s being written about you? About how you’re portrayed, or how you’re being recognized for your accomplishments? What’s the first link that comes up with your name? Above all, if you’re going to be looking at places, companies, and interest points beyond your normal sphere of acquaintances and networking, online is the first place you can go to develop your personal brand to reach those audiences.

I think you should start with a personal website (which I talk about below), and also a LinkedIn profile (below).

For now LinkedIn is definitely the most widespread professional network online. It doesn’t take a long time to set up your profile, and it costs you nothing (today). You should definitely have a presence there, keeping in mind that LinkedIn is still in control of how your profiles will appear, what kind of information you can or should include, and they definitely control who has access to your profile. So while it’s a good place to be, and you should keep it updated (reminds self to update profile which is a bit out of date), you shouldn’t rely on it as your only presence online. You need a website, which I talk about below.

As for LinkedIn endorsements, I’m still pretty skeptical these are of any value. It’s still very one-click opt-in by people visiting your profile, and LinkedIn is presenting skills that they decide they want to promote, i.e., so for a rash of time I might have 10-15 endorsements on a single skill that I never really wanted to highlight. I think it’s worth reading others’ endorsements with a grain of salt, and making sure you prune your own to make sure what’s rising to the top is really what you’d like associated with your personal brand and experience.

More and more people are registering domains with their first and last name. Is it useful to create a site with your actual name? Which message(s) should it communicate?

Absolutely yes! I’ve had SaraRosso.com since 2002, and it’s had its own incarnations over time, but it’s been my home on the web and my digital hub where I can bring all of my activities & interests under one roof and emphasize and de-emphasize them as needed. Having a domain that’s your first and last name will make it easier for people to find you later, but if you don’t want to go that route, I suggest choosing a domain which is easy to spell and remember, and isn’t tied to any specific profession or job title so you can leave room for growth or change in your personal brand.

For anyone who’s not sure what to put on their site, you don’t need to have a mega-site with tons of content to have your own website. Over the years I’ve helped various people set up sites and to start you need to cover these three things at a minimum:

Who you are (your bio and relevant experience.)

What you’re looking for (are you looking for work? consulting? not looking for work? That’s ok to state, too.)

How to get in contact with you(even if you’re not looking for work, make sure people can get a hold of you. You never know what opportunities might arrive.)

They can be all on one page, or on separate pages, etc. It’s your opportunity to show whoever lands on your site who you are and more importantly, what you’re doing / looking to do to save both of you a bit of time.

I truly believe that WordPress.com is a perfect place to create your own digital hub site — you can sign up for free, register a domain name & map it to the WordPress.com address (so you can send visitors to your personalized domain) and you’re only investing about $20/year to have a place to grow your personal brand. We take care of everything else for you — support, upgrades, backup, so you can focus on your message.

I’m (a student / new to the workforce / young). Is it too early to think about my personal brand?

I think college-aged is a perfect time to start sowing the seeds of your personal brand. You want to be ready to receive and respond to opportunities when they happen. One could seriously arise tomorrow. Many opportunities which have come my way have come via people finding & contacting me directly through my website. Isn’t preparing for that worth a little bit of time invested in your site? While you’re at it, get some business cards printed up with your name & domain name, so you can give them out if needed. Moo.com makes classy affordable ones.

What are the downsides / risks of being too visible online?

Paola mentioned having a stalker, and while I agree personal safety is definitely one of the things you’ll want to be careful with, I think one of the things to pay attention to is the “border” between you and your job. For many people this line doesn’t really exist, both from an external observation (how people see you separate from your job) and internal (how separate you see your job from you) points of view.

The obvious things that involve confidentiality, client or user data, upcoming projects, and strategy are easy to understand why you should avoid talking those things online, but what about the softer side? Can you complain about a visit with a bad client on Twitter? Can you express your opinion (about anything) as long as it’s not offensive? Even if it’s the opposite of your company’s stance on the same issue? Do you celebrate successes and take responsibility for the company’s failures?

These are good questions to think about and something each company will embrace differently and enforce differently, and your role online will have to adjust accordingly. A company which completely forbids the use of social media for its employees is alienating some of its potentially strongest brand advocates & supporters, but there is risk for employees to be too vocal and too visible without restraint.

Isn’t personal branding a little aggressive?

Sure. ‘Selling yourself’ can be considered aggressive. It can make you uncomfortable. It may make other people uncomfortable. In my experience what other people think of your personal branding isn’t as important as how effective it is for you. If you make it that much easier for a person who’s looking for someone exactly like you to find you and understand what you’re about, how can that be a bad thing?

If you need more convincing, don’t let it be just me who convinces you — check out these articles from Harvard Business Review about why you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about yourself and your accomplishments:

Are there any questions about personal branding we didn’t answer? Drop them in the comments below.

Filed under: Productivity & Self, Website & Blog Tagged: getting started, improvement, LinkedIn, personal brand, personal branding, website, WordPress]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2013/11/12/personal-branding-is-everyones-problem/feed/3Sara Rosso and Paola Bonomo presenting at SDA BocconiSaraIn October I went to the SDA Bocconi School of Management to speak to the Young Women Network about personal branding. I did a presentation with Paola Bonomo, one of the more interesting women in technology & angel investing in Italy, whom I've known for years. We agreed on some questions to discuss beforehand, and some great questions came from the audience, too. I translated the questions as best I could remember, and I'm including some of my answers below about personal branding, and using a personal website (WordPress of course!) and other tools like LinkedIn to communicate your personal brand. Here are the questions: What does personal branding mean to you? Does everyone need a personal brand? Why or why not? How can one start to create their own personal brand? What are the downsides / risks of being too visible online? What's your opinion on LinkedIn? Are LinkedIn endorsements important / useful? More and more people are registering domains with their first and last name. Is it useful to create a site with your actual name? Which message(s) should it communicate? I'm (a student / new to the workforce / young). Is it too early to think about my personal brand? Isn't personal branding a little aggressive? What does personal branding mean to you? Paola remarked that a personal brand is what other people say of you, and while I definitely agree, personal branding has the added component of giving you the opportunity to also shape what others say about you. In banal terms, personal branding is the branding of an individual through the recounting of experience, goals, and skills, with a goal of increasing visibility, obtaining professional opportunities, or just helping to contribute to the narrative about themselves. A personal brand is not a result of one's profession, rather the profession is a part of the personal brand. Does everyone need a personal brand? Why or why not? I think everyone needs one, and as I mentioned previously, you probably already have a personal brand anyway. I think the better question is asking yourself if you want to be able to, or are you prepared to cultivate your personal brand directly and take advantage of it and shape it if necessary? Obviously I think you should. It's the difference between being reactive and proactive. If you don't have some tools, content, and some goals in place, it's very hard to 'turn the Titanic' later when you really need to. One of the stories I often tell about personal branding is several years ago when I was organizing the Girl Geek Dinners in Milan, an Italian journalist wrote an article about the organizers and the description of who I was, was roughly translated to "a housewife passionate about recipes and photography." I don't have anything against housewives, but at the time I was working full-time in a technical role with two degrees under my belt, so to say it wasn't an accurate description of me was an understatement. At the time my most prominent presence online was my food & travel site — this site didn't yet exist & I was forwarding my firstnamelastname domain to that food site, so LinkedIn profile aside, the journalist made an incorrect assumption. That was one of the impetus in fact to create this website — I wanted to increase the visibility of my technical and business side, which I was working hard on all-day every day in the workplace (and at night by helping friends with their own tech & biz problems). How can one start to create their own personal brand? You need to start online. We joke but it's the first place someone goes if they are curious about you. You Google that person. You Google yourself even, ala vanity Googling. Even if you get a personal recommendation about someone, you're most likely going to follow that up with your own search about that person — does the recommendation match what other people are saying about this person? And about what they say about themselves? Not only that, but having an online presence which is clear and includes your personal brand is a way to help your friends help you. They can help you better if you provide them a reference point online, especially if you make it clear what kinds of things you're looking for, and your accomplishments. It's like a "you" crib sheet or cliffs notes. Another reason to go online is to make sure you're providing the story of your brand in first person. Look online — do you like what's being written about you? About how you're portrayed, or how you're being recognized for your accomplishments? What's the first link that comes up with your name? Above all, if you're going to be looking at places, companies, and interest points beyond your normal sphere of acquaintances and networking, online is the first place you can go to develop your personal brand to reach those audiences. I think you should start with a personal website (which I talk about below), and also a LinkedIn profile. What are the downsides / risks of being too visible online? Paola mentioned having a stalker, and while I agree personal safety is definitely one of the things you'll want to be careful with, I think one of the things to pay attention to is the "border" between you and your job. For many people this line doesn't really exist, both from an external observation (how people see you separate from your job) and internal (how separate you see your job from you) points of view. The obvious things that involve confidentiality, client or user data, upcoming projects, and strategy are easy to understand why you should avoid talking those things online, but what about the softer side? Can you complain about a visit with a bad client on Twitter? Can you express your opinion (about anything) as long as it's not offensive? Even if it's the opposite of your company's stance on the same issue? Do you celebrate successes and take responsibility for the company's failures? These are good questions to think about and something each company will embrace differently and enforce differently, and your role online will have to adjust accordingly. A company which completely forbids the use of social media for its employees is alienating some of its potentially strongest brand advocates & supporters, but there is risk for employees to be too vocal and too visible without restraint. What's your opinion on LinkedIn? Are LinkedIn endorsements important / useful? For now LinkedIn is definitely the most widespread professional network online. It doesn't take a long time to set up your profile, and it costs you nothing (today). You should definitely have a presence there, keeping in mind that LinkedIn is still in control of how your profiles will appear, what kind of information you can or should include, and they definitely control who has access to your profile. So while it's a good place to be, and you should keep it updated (reminds self to update profile which is a bit out of date), you shouldn't rely on it as your only presence online. You need a website, which I talk about below. As for LinkedIn endorsements, I'm still pretty skeptical these are of any value. It's still very one-click opt-in by people visiting your profile, and LinkedIn is presenting skills that they decide they want to promote, i.e., so for a rash of time I might have 10-15 endorsements on a single skill that I never really wanted to highlight. I think it's worth reading others' endorsements with a grain of salt, and making sure you prune your own to make sure what's rising to the top is really what you'd like associated with your personal brand and experience. More and more people are registering domains with their first and last name. Is it useful to create a site with your actual name? Which message(s) should it communicate? Absolutely yes! I've had SaraRosso.com since 2002, and it's had its own incarnations over time, but it's been my home on the web and my digital hub where I can bring all of my activities & interests under one roof and emphasize and de-emphasize them as needed. Having a domain that's your first and last name will make it easier for people to find you later, but if you don't want to go that route, I suggest choosing a domain which is easy to spell and remember, and isn't tied to any specific profession or job title so you can leave room for growth or change in your personal brand. For anyone who's not sure what to put on their site, you don't need to have a mega-site with tons of content to have your own website. Over the years I've helped various people set up sites and to start you need to cover these three things at a minimum: Who you are (your bio and relevant experience.) What you're looking for (are you looking for work? consulting? not looking for work? That's ok to state, too.) How to get in contact with you (even if you're not looking for work, make sure people can get a hold of you. You never know what opportunities might arrive.) They can be all on one page, or on separate pages, etc. It's your opportunity to show whoever lands on your site who you are and more importantly, what you're doing / looking to do to save both of you a bit of time. I truly believe that WordPress.com is a perfect place to create your own digital hub site — you can sign up for free, register a domain name & map it to the WordPress.com address (so you can send visitors to your personalized domain) and you're only investing about $20/year to have a place to grow your personal brand. We take care of everything else for you — support, upgrades, backup, so you can focus on your message. I'm (a student / new to the workforce / young). Is it too early to think about my personal brand? I think college-aged is a perfect time to start sowing the seeds of your personal brand. You want to be ready to receive and respond to opportunities when they happen. One could seriously arise tomorrow. Many opportunities which have come my way have come via people finding & contacting me directly through my website. Isn't preparing for that worth a little bit of time invested in your site? While you're at it, get some business cards printed up with your name & domain name, so you can give them out if needed. Moo.com makes classy affordable ones. Isn't personal branding a little aggressive? Sure. 'Selling yourself' can be considered aggressive. It can make you uncomfortable. At least, in the beginning. Listing your accomplishments and your skills shouldn't be seen as selling yourself, however. And if you make it that much easier for a person who's looking for someone exactly like you to find you and understand what you're about, how can that be a bad thing? If you need more convincing, don't let it be just me who convinces you — check out these articles from Harvard Business Review about why you shouldn't be afraid to talk about yourself and your accomplishments: Four Ways Women Stunt Their Careers Unintentionally The Toot-Your-Own-Horn Gender Bias Are there any questions about personal branding we didn't answer? Drop them in the comments below.Why Big Brands Love WordPresshttp://whenihavetime.com/2013/10/06/why-big-brands-love-wordpress/
http://whenihavetime.com/2013/10/06/why-big-brands-love-wordpress/#commentsSun, 06 Oct 2013 15:23:03 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=4057]]>A presentation I gave at WordCamp Europe 2013 where I explain why big brands, enterprises & companies love WordPress, with tons of examples and quotes from companies using WordPress.

]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2013/10/06/why-big-brands-love-wordpress/feed/1Why Big Brands Love WordPress by Sara RossoSaragwceu-SaraRossoAsk the Geek: Should I Host my site on WordPress.com?http://whenihavetime.com/2013/02/13/ask-the-geek-should-i-host-my-site-on-wordpress-com/
http://whenihavetime.com/2013/02/13/ask-the-geek-should-i-host-my-site-on-wordpress-com/#commentsWed, 13 Feb 2013 21:12:24 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=3885]]>Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask the Geek,

I see you are moving your blogs over to wp.com: does it work like an hosting service? I mean, if I move everything there I can stop using [hosting service]? What are the pros & cons of using WordPress.com?

Sincerely,
Platform-challenged

Dear Platform-challenged,

Video response! I try to share some thoughts on hosting on WordPress.com vs. self-hosted WordPress (available at WordPress.org). tl;dr: WordPress.com may not be the perfect solution for everyone, but it’s a great solution for a lot of websites and blogs.

Disclosure: I work for Automattic (WordPress.com) but I also host several WordPress sites on other hosting providers. This video represents my personal thoughts.

Some points I cover in the video:

You can customize WordPress.com themes with custom fonts, colors, and definitely by changing the CSS using Custom Design. The new live preview for themes is pretty awesome and helps when switching between themes.

WordPress.com is not just trunk/core WordPress; it’s a lot more! Many features which are built in would require finding & installing a plugin on self-hosted solutions. Our features page highlights a few of the many features.

Try not to get swayed by “You need X plugin to have a great WordPress site” arguments. Make sure you identify the essential features or functionality your site needs, and then you can identify which solution is best for you. You should check out the first part of my presentation Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate. where I delve into understanding your site’s purpose and functionality.

Spend some time on Theme.WordPress.com to see which themes are available – there are more than 200 themes, both free and premium, and more are being released all the time.

WordPress out of the box does 80-90% of the SEO you need. I haven’t seen any real proof additional SEO plugins and specifications really do anything for the majority of sites. You need good content first and foremost.

You can map a custom domain on top of your WordPress.com URL, so I quickly mapped http://whenihavetime.com on top of my free URL, whenihavetime.wordpress.com.

You can use the free version, or add upgrades like space, VideoPress, or other features from the WordPress.com Store. We have bundles which package some of these things, and WordPress.com Enterprise offers even more plugins our high-powered VIP clients use.

One of the best parts about WordPress.com is being able to concentrate on what you do best: write great content. Leave the security, backups, and code updates to the WordPress.com team.

We’re expanding our advertising options on WordPress.com. You can turn ads off completely with the No-Ads upgrade, or you can be a part of the WordAds program and get paid for advertising on your site with select partners (this site is a part of WordAds). More on advertising.

Filed under: Ask The Geek, Website & Blog Tagged: administration, blog, getting started, website, WordPress, WordPress.com]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2013/02/13/ask-the-geek-should-i-host-my-site-on-wordpress-com/feed/9Screen Shot 2013-02-13 at 10.11.09 PMSaraAsk the Geek - When I Have TimeHow to Create a Free Mobile Photoblog on WordPress.comhttp://whenihavetime.com/2012/12/18/how-to-create-a-free-mobile-photoblog-on-wordpress-com/
http://whenihavetime.com/2012/12/18/how-to-create-a-free-mobile-photoblog-on-wordpress-com/#commentsTue, 18 Dec 2012 18:28:36 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=3863]]>With the recent Instagram terms of service changes, I’ve had several people ask me how to create a mobile photoblog here on WordPress.com, since I use it for my own mobile photoblog.

It’s pretty easy. Here’s what you do, with appropriate links. You’ll be reading this to publishing on your mobile photoblog in the next five minutes!

The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.” started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, it’s very exciting for both speakers and spectators. 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s a timing nightmare and you’re always racing against the clock, but it’s a great exercise to really concentrate on the meat of your presentation and remove the extras. (I gave another Ignite earlier this year on the New Digital Company: Distributed, Online, Transparent)

In any case, the Ignite I gave has enough material and research behind it for a 1 hour talk, and it was hard to stop at 5. But since this topic is relatively new, I wanted to whet people’s appetites with a broad overview of digital curation: what, why, how, and a brief look at curation and protecting our data across all of these different social networks and sites we sign up to and subsequently fill up with our data. We often can’t get that data back.

I propose WordPress as a digital hub – a place where our original and curated content is created, published, and archived, and integrates with everything else. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one you can own and it continues to evolve as new plugins are coming out every day (just today a plugin was released to sync WordPress with Google+ – it’s a great time to get started!)

The liveblog is about 90% accurate, which is amazing since we were talking so fast, so if you see particular sentences with a few words missing you should know that the point being made was brilliant and we were coherent the entire time. :)

Podcast (audio recordings) of all sessions will become available soon, as well as videos of select sessions (it’s not clear if my session will be included or not) and will be available at BlogHer ’11 VirtualCon. And all of those materials are free!

Filed under: Presentations, Website & Blog Tagged: blog, BlogHer, BuddyPress, community, Open Source software, social media, WordPress]]>http://whenihavetime.com/2011/08/19/social-media-geek-adding-community-features-to-your-blog-liveblog-from-blogher-11/feed/0SaraI'm Speaking at BlogHer '11!WordPress for Large-Scale Installs and Enterprisehttp://whenihavetime.com/2011/08/16/wordpress-for-large-scale-installs/
http://whenihavetime.com/2011/08/16/wordpress-for-large-scale-installs/#commentsTue, 16 Aug 2011 16:04:25 +0000http://whenihavetime.com/?p=3405]]>Here’s the presentation I gave at WordCamp San Francisco – the official annual WordPress conference. This year there were more than 1,000 participants and not only did I speak, but I was working behind the scenes with the rest of the Automattic crew and volunteers to make the conference great.

Here are the video and slides from my presentation which was a brief introduction to WordPress for non-tech decision makers and lots of case studies and examples of large-scale and enterprise installs using WordPress. I also highlighted related presentations from the WordCamp weekend – be sure and look for those individual presentations on WordPress.tv and on their sites when they become available.